Even a cursory search shows the hype surrounding the Nokia 3310 at this year's Mobile World Congress has only been eclipsed by the release of the actual handset itself.

Seriously, the retro darling 3310 has sold out in its first week, with Carphone Warehouse and Vodafone stating a "one to two week" wait for stocks to be replenished. Carphone Warehouse even said there was "10 times more pre-registration interest for the Nokia 3310 than any other flagship devices out of MWC in the retailer's history".

The appetite for the tech of yesteryear seems to have reached “peak retro” – at least WIRED hopes it has, anyway. Why do we feel this way? Because after the initial nostalgia wears off – which unfortunately takes minutes, not hours – living with the Nokia 3310 is not the pleasant experience remembered through rose-tinted, year-2000 glasses. Let’s get into it, shall we?

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Design

WIRED

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Starting off on a positive, this is a pretty phone. Some have scoffed at the garish colours, but WIRED is quite taken with the design and would go as far as to say that it fulfils part of its brief as being a cool status handset (whether you have a hipster beard or not).

It is not a replica of the original design – far from it, in fact – but there is just enough echo of that 2000 form to sufficiently remind you of your old, faithful, indestructible communication tool. It’s thinner, with a larger (now colour) screen, but the curved operation buttons underneath the display, along with the surrounding curved white detailing provide the necessary retrofication.

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Even the appearance of the T9 keyboard brings a smile to the face, as does the whole design, and it feels comfortable in the hand and light enough in the pocket at 80g.

Sonically, there are some further nods to the old Nokia with updated versions of the “classic” ringtone and message notification. While appealing, it also underlines that the new Nokia 3310 is intended not to be a recreation but a reinterpretation.

Performance

For the retro-heads, it may surprise you to find out that Nokia has been making “dumb” phones for years. The 3310 does not mark a new strategy for the brand. In fact, just a few years ago at MWC, one of the main stories was that Nokia had released a dumb phone for the bargain-basement price of about £14, while the current Nokia 105 costs just £8. The new 3310 costs considerably more at £50, though still pocket change when compared to smartphones.

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The 3310 is also basically a £20 Nokia 150 that’s been taken to the shopping centre and bought some admittedly fancy clothes. It also has a much improved 2MP camera – but the images it produces are in truth nothing to write home about – possibly good enough for text messages but never for actual display. You can also record video if you dare.

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Phone box shot using the 3310 camera

WIRED

WIRED

Exterior London shot using the 3310 camera

WIRED

What is not included is GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G and 4G connectivity (so those on Three will need to switch networks as the 3310 will not work on that network) - 2.5G Edge is the limit of the 3310’s capability. You do get basic calling, texting, a clock, very limited web browsing and a new version of the classic Snake game that aims to maximise the device’s 2.4-inch 240×320 colour screen. There are also some simple apps such a stopwatch/timer and weather report – and the inclusion of a voice recorder was a pleasant surprise, as was the on-board radio.

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MicroUSB is used for charging, and on the bottom of the handset is a 3.5mm headphone jack – most welcome. Turning to memory, the Nokia 3310 comes with 16MB of built-in storage, but sadly only 1.4MB of this is user accessible – so you are certainly going to need the microSD card slot letting you add up to 32GB of extra storage.

The battery performance is the killer feature here, of course. The removable power pack is good for a theoretical 22.1 hours of talk time and a thumping 31 days of standby. WIRED has only had its 3310 a week, so not enough to test this fully but it hasn’t needed charging yet.

Texting using that T9 keyboard quickly becomes a headache, and you have to rewire your brain to “ultimate brevity” mode, recalling all the abbreviations, quirks and shortcuts one used years ago, not because you had limited character counts, but because it wasn’t any fun to type much more than monosyllabic replies.

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The d-pad used for navigation is also so slender that it takes some getting used to. Using Twitter is surprisingly workable, same with Facebook (both downloadable apps), but those addicted to WhatsApp and the like can forget it with the 3310.

Conclusion

Nokia originally sold 126 million units sold worldwide of the first 3310, and is no doubt looking to repeat such success here. And, judging by the rush to sign up for them by the public, it will no doubt shift loads of this new iteration. It is an attractive design with the right heritage and presses the right cultural buttons to inspire affection.

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That said, if we are to mark this against other dumb phones, at £50 this is priced very high and doesn't even have top specs in category. One can even bag a full Android smartphone for this amount of cash.

So, it’s not about the features and connectivity, it’s not purely about the battery life either – with the 3310 it’s all about the well-executed vintage-tinged design and the cachet that brings you. If you can live with that, then bingo, this is the phone for you.